


Forrest Buys Maggie Flowers (prompt)

by wysiwygot



Category: Lawless (2012)
Genre: F/M, Flowers, Fluff, Gen, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Secret Marriage, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 23:58:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16943151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wysiwygot/pseuds/wysiwygot
Summary: His love showed itself in different ways. Less of a lantern hung up on a dark night, like Maggie’s; more like the firmament above their heads, magnificent and silent.





	Forrest Buys Maggie Flowers (prompt)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short thing written for a prompt given on Tumblr by TheAstronomer: Forrest Bondurant buys Maggie flowers.

They’d meant to tell the others. At first, anyhow, that was the plan—they’d get Forrest out of the hospital, back home, up on his feet, and then they’d tell them all: Maggie was a Bondurant now. Maybe they’d host a potluck.

At the very least, they’d tell Howard, if only because he’d be inconsolable if they didn’t. The eldest Bondurant loved a love story, especially seeing that he finally had one of his own to tell. So, they’d tell him, they decided. Rather, Maggie decided and Forrest reluctantly nodded. But maybe they shouldn’t tell Jack. If Jack knew, the whole damn county would know, and that defeated the purpose and safety of being secretly married.

Instead, by all appearances, Maggie and Forrest enjoyed themselves a long, quiet courtship. Everybody knew they shared a bed in a room above the station, and most everybody knew that she loved him as much as she loved her own life. Most often, it was downright impossible for her to hide it in her face. Every time she looked at Forrest, mixed company or not, it was like she was lit from within. It didn’t matter if Maggie was bringing him a mug of coffee in the morning or grousing about his damned hat on the table again, it was clear to anyone with the smallest shred of kindness in them that even the littlest moment between them was held together by the love in her heart.

His love showed itself in different ways. Less of a lantern hung up on a dark night, like Maggie’s; more like the firmament above their heads, magnificent and silent.

She teased Forrest about keeping up appearances for reputation’s sake, saying that they were living in sin, far as anyone else in Franklin County knew. Far as the fancy church hat ladies who stopped by the station knew.

“Ain’t nothing about you and me that’s a sin,” Forrest said in his low voice, pulling her closer. His voice was even lower than usual, seeing as they were huddled together in her room, late at night. There were lodgers above the station house, same floor as their rooms. Maggie smiled at what Forrest may or may not consider a sin, and craned her head up to press her lips against the small raised scar under his chin.  _Maybe a few things about them were sinful_ , she thought. But if God almighty hadn’t struck her down in her old life, she reckoned He wasn’t about to start now.

Eventually, too much time had passed to make any sort of a big announcement to the general public about their matrimonial status. Forrest said he’d look like a fool, introducing her with no gold ring for her finger. People would say he couldn’t keep his wife right, that he was a no-account son of a gun. Then again, he reckoned they’d been saying that last bit for years.

“That’s not what they say, my love,” she assured him. They didn’t revisit the subject again after that. What was the point, anyway.

Howard knew, in the end, but he kept his mouth shut. So, it was mostly between Maggie and Forrest—the wife and her husband—that the secret of their marriage was kept, tucked like a hard candy into their cheeks. Something sweet and wholly theirs to enjoy in private moments. Everyone else could go hang.

After all was said and done, after the wars and the battles they all fought together as a family, unofficial or not, Maggie was pleased to know that Forrest took a liking to guarding their secret, too. The closest he ever got to boasting—about their happy union, or otherwise—was every year on their anniversary.

The first time, one year after they’d walked out of the Franklin County hospital as man and wife, Maggie came back to the bar after dumping a rancid vat of grease out in the back culvert to find a cluster of daylilies resting on the counter. The restaurant was empty—which is why she was doing the most unpleasant of her kitchen chores—so Maggie went out to the front porch to see if Forrest knew anything about it.

“What’s this all about?” she asked him, smiling at seeing him resting in his chair, still recuperating, as he idly watched the pumps. “Is there a funeral or something coming through town?”

Forrest looked into the distance down the dusty road as he shrugged and grunted, “Mm. Probly.”

“Are these for me?” Maggie beamed, keeping her enthusiasm to a minimum. Forrest wasn’t one for much of a fuss. But oh, how she wanted to fuss.

“Mm,” Forrest agreed wordlessly. He traded his cigar from one hand to the other and used his free hand to reach over and lightly pat her rear end. “For the … anniversary. The wedding.”

Maggie fought the urge to titter. She didn’t need that clarification, but his obvious discomfort at disclosing his motives was charming. Under all those frowns and scars, belying the set of brass knuckles that he now kept in a drawer by their bed, he was still a shy man. She nodded sagely at him, feigning ignorance: “Oh, THAT anniversary. I see. Well, where’d you get ‘em?”

She looked at the beautiful blooms. They looked like tiny bonfires, set on green stalks. “I didn’t know there was a flower shop in all of Franklin … is there?”

“Well, I didn’t pick ‘em,” Forrest added defensively, again worried that he’d look like a miser. “I bought ‘em.”

Maggie was baffled. “You bought them?” It didn’t matter, not really, but now she just had to know. She did enjoy the idea of Forrest sneaking through someone’s garden, using his Bowie knife to cut the slender blooms for her on their first anniversary.

Forrest still had the skirt of her dress between his knuckles after that slick move he’d made, and was rubbing the cotton fabric between the rough skin of his knuckles. He wasn’t cheap. He always set aside money so she could buy as many pretty frocks and new shoes as she liked. He knew it was important. And, frankly, he liked all the buttons and bows.

Guiltily, Forrest finally admitted that he didn’t buy the flowers outright. He’d traded a gallon of fuel for them, to a farmer who was fixing to deliver a mess of them to a funeral home in Roanoke that same day.

“But, next year, Maggie …” Forrest drawled, the tips of his fingers trailing across her backside, “Next year, I’ll get more. And you’ll know.”


End file.
